Benita Cooper & Her Senior Storytellers Use Art to Create Change...

Benita Cooper has just received her first grant! Her project The Best Day of My Life (So Far) began only months ago with two core media: the classroom and the web. With The Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant two new components can be added to this multi-media storytelling project. Now performance and video can be added to the classroom and the web in the form of a blog.

Receiving this grant gives Benita the opportunity to develop Seniors Storytelling Day. This will happen in Philadelphia, in a public venue, with teens and older adutls on stage together telling stories to a physical audience.

This blog is the digital window into a weekly storytelling and writing class at Philadelphia Senior Center, a proud member of the New Courtland Network. We meet every Thursday from 1-2pm...The seniors are so full of life; their stories are so full of grace, wisdom and humor. This blog won't capture the seniors' every word, but at the minimum we hope their voices come through.

In June 2006, Benita Cooper, an architect in Philadelphia, called her grandma in Seattle for the first time in her life… just to talk. They haven’t stopped talking since. Inspired by the stories that her grandma tells her over the phone, Benita began the class and blog in September 2009.

Creative Arts & Aging Network was fortunate to have Benita as one of our panelists for our May 20th Event--The Arts for All Ages:  A Creative Conversation. Congratulations, Benita, to you and all your older adult writers!

Read more about Benita Cooper and her project The Best Day of My Life (So Far) here and here.  And you can follow The Best Day of My Life (So Far) on both Facebook and Twitter.